Bella Rosa Marriages: The Bridesmaid's Secret. Fiona Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ I knew there was a reason why we had a fashion expert in the family,’ Lizzie said, smiling as she pulled her long dark hair out of the way.

      Jackie concentrated on the row of tiny silk-covered buttons that seemed to go on for ever. ‘This dress is exquisite,’ she said as she reached the last few. Which was amazing, since it had to have been made in mere weeks.

      Jackie stood back and admired her sister. Getting a dress to not only fit somebody perfectly, but complement their personality was something that even cold, hard cash couldn’t buy, unless you were in the hands of a true artist.

      Isabella and Scarlett came close to inspect the dress and mutter their appreciation. Jackie turned, a smile of utter serenity on her face, and prepared herself to greet her fellow bridesmaids.

      Isabella first. They kissed lightly on both cheeks and Isabella rubbed her shoulder gently with her hand as they traded pleasantries. Jackie kept her smile in place as she turned to face her younger sister. They kissed without actually making contact and made a pretence of an embrace.

      She and Scarlett had been so close once, especially after Lizzie had gone to university in Australia, when it had just been the two of them and she’d felt like a proper big sister rather than just Lizzie’s deputy. She’d even thought vainly that Scarlett might have hero-worshipped her a little bit.

      But that had all changed the summer she’d got pregnant with Kate. Scarlett had never looked at her the same way again. And why should she have? Some role model Jackie had been. Who would want to emulate the disaster area that had been her life back then—Jackie in tears most of the day, Mamma alternating between ranting and giving her the ice-queen treatment?

      Not long after that Scarlett had moved away too. She’d followed in Lizzie’s footsteps and flown halfway round the world to live with her father. They’d never had a chance to patch things up, for Jackie to say how sorry she was to make Scarlett so ashamed of her. No more late-night secret-sharing sessions. No more raiding the kitchen at Sorella, one of them rifling through the giant stainless-steel fridge for chocolate cake, one of them keeping guard in case the chef spotted them.

      Now they talked as little as possible and met in person even less. Jackie released Scarlett from the awkward hug and took a good look at her. They hadn’t laid eyes on each other in more than five years. Scarlett hadn’t changed much, except for looking a little bit older and even more like their mother. She had the same hint of iron behind her eyes these days, but the generous twist of the mouth Jackie recognised from their childhood tempered it a little.

      Of course, Lizzie was far too excited to notice the undercurrents flowing around amidst the tulle and taffeta.

      ‘Come on, girls! You next. I want to see how fabulous my bridesmaids are going to look.’

      Scarlett and Isabella had already removed their dresses from their garment bags. They were every bit as stunning as Lizzie’s. She’d been told that all three dresses would be the same shade of dusky aubergine, but she hadn’t realised that they would vary in style and cut.

      Isabella’s was classic and feminine, with a gathered upper bodice, tiny spaghetti straps and a bow under the bustline, where the empire-line skirt fell away. Scarlett’s was edgier, with a nineteen-thirties feel—devoid of frills and with a deep V in the front.

      Jackie appointed herself as wardrobe mistress and zipped, buttoned and laced wherever help was needed. When she’d finished, Isabella handed her a garment bag.

      Jackie hesitated before she took the bag from her cousin. It had been a bad idea to help the others get dressed. Now they had nothing else to do but watch her strip off. She clutched the bag to her chest and looked for the nearest corner. Isabella and Scarlett just stood there, waiting.

      Then she felt the bag being tugged gently from between her fingers. ‘Why don’t you use Mamma’s dressing room?’ Lizzie said as she relieved Jackie of the bag and led her towards a door on the other side of the room. ‘You can freshen up a little from your flight, if you need to.’

      Jackie sent her sister a grateful look and did exactly that.

      Lizzie had been the only one she’d confided in about her body issues. It had started not long after she’d given Kate away. At first, eating less and exercising had been about getting her shape back before she returned to Italy, removing all evidence that her body had been stretched and changed irrevocably. Mamma had been pleased when she’d met her off the plane, had complimented her on her self-discipline. But back in Italy she’d been confronted with the sheer pleasure of food, the sensuality of how people ate, and she’d shied away from it. Somewhere along the line the self-denial, the discipline, had become something darker. She’d sought control. Punishment. Atonement.

      She’d liked the angles and lines of her physique and, when she’d finally escaped Monta Correnti at eighteen and moved to London to take the position of office assistant at a quirky style magazine, she’d fitted right in. Her new world had been full of girls eating nothing but celery and moaning that their matchstick thighs were too chunky.

      It had taken her quite a few years to admit she’d had a problem. To admit that the yellowish tinge her skin had taken on had been more than just the product of her Italian genes, that the sunken hollows beneath her cheeks weren’t good bone structure and that it hadn’t been natural to be able to count her ribs with such ease.

      Quietly she’d got help. Putting the weight back on had been a struggle. Every pound she’d gained had been an accusation. But she’d done it. And now she was proud to have a body that most women her age would kill for. It was meticulously nourished on the best organic food and trained four times a week by a personal trainer.

      Even though she knew she looked good, she still didn’t want to be gawped at without her clothes on. It was different when she was in her cutting-edge designer suits. Dressed like that she was Jacqueline Patterson—the woman whose name was only uttered in hushed tones when she walked down the corridors of Gloss! magazine’s high-rise offices. Remove the armour and she became faceless. Just another woman in her thirties with stretch marks and a Caesarean scar.

      With the dressing-room door shut firmly behind her, Jackie slipped out of her linen trouser suit and went through the connecting door to Mamma’s en suite to freshen up. As she washed she could hear her cousin catching Lizzie up on all the latest Monta Correnti gossip, especially the unabridged story of how Isabella had met her own fiancé.

      When Jackie felt she’d finally got all the traces of aeroplane air off her skin, she returned to the dressing room and removed her bridesmaid’s dress from its protective covering.

      Wow. Stunning.

      It reminded her of designs she’d done in senior school for the class play of Romeo and Juliet. Like the other dresses, it was empire line, with an embroidered bodice that scooped underneath the gathered chiffon at the bust and then round and up into shoulder straps.

      Not many people knew enough about fashion design to see the artistry in the cutting that gave the skirt its effortlessly feminine swell. Nor would they notice the inner rigid structure of the bodice that would accentuate every curve of a woman’s torso but give the impression that it was nature that had done all the hard work and not the fine stitching and cutting. She took it off the hanger and undid the zip. As she stepped into the dress there was a knock at the door that led back out into the bedroom.

      ‘Everything okay in there?’ Lizzie’s voice was muffled through the closed door. Jackie smiled.

      ‘Almost СКАЧАТЬ